India Broadband Forum

India Broadband Internet

Doordarshan might have failed to bring decent television programming to the Indian audiences but you can bet that they would stay ahead with the technical enhancements to their range of services.

The public broadcaster is now planning to launch its Digital Video Broadcasting to Handhelds (DVB-H) service in the second half of 2006.

This technology has been designed to help the consumer get television programming on their mobile phones and other portable devices.

Doordarshan director general Navin Kumar said in a statement on this new initiative: “With this technology, we will be able to make available the content of our four national channels on mobiles. Earlier, we had made available DD News in moving vehicles in Delhi through the Digital Video Broadcasting to terrestrials (DVB-T) earlier. Now with the DVB-H technology, we are entering the mobile space.”

They also have plans to digitize its archive and make it available to the public as streaming videos. Kumar said on this initiative: “Our effort is to share this content with people through CDs and streaming videos. In streaming mode, people will be able to watch the programmes in real time basis.”

However, the real question remains… do they have enough decent programming to lure customers to spend money on getting it on their mobile phones? I personally can’t think of any exclusive show on their channels, which lured me to switch to DD channels in the last couple of years.